When the head rules the Harte, it’s trouble

IT was a story to make the blood boil. Last Tuesday, it was all over the daily newspapers. For the remainder of the week, it filled the airwaves and newsprint.

A family is pulling in around €90,000 a year from social welfare payments.

The married couple were described as unemployed. They have four children, are from Bosnia, and live in Dublin. The politician who broke the story, Labour senator Jimmy Harte, made the point it was entirely irrelevant where they came from. The point was the system, and how it was beyond reason.

Harte detailed the figures for weekly income. The father of the family receives a disability allowance of €322. He, or his wife, get a guardian’s pension of €286 for a child the family have taken in; rent supplement is €276; a carer’s allowance for the mother comes in at €380; child benefit income equals €288; and there is a payment entitled “special needs” for a 17-year-old daughter. Total weekly income from social welfare is €1,763.

All hell broke loose. Hard working citizens, who have taken major hits in recent times, were apoplectic. Here was an example of the layabout classes who suck the state dry of resources, and have no incentive to get up off their backsides and go out and work. No wonder the country is in the state it’s in.

The only problem with the story is the facts. A close examination of the detail tells far more about the political and media classes than it does anything about those who live on social welfare.

In the first instance, context was all over the shop. When figures like these are released by a politician, it is usually as a result of a parliamentary question. The figures are thus official and largely unquestionable. In this case, Harte didn’t claim his information was official, but practically all the media took the figures as such. Harte says he obtained the figures from a confidential source, albeit one he trusts.

As was set out above, the principal in this “family” is on disability allowance, and therefore presumably unfit for work. He may have a bad back problem or he may be a paraplegic, we simply don’t know.

Among the “payments” listed was €276 for rent supplement. This goes directly to a landlord. The tenant receives no cash and must pay the first €20 for rent themselves. To list rent supplement as income is valid only if you believe that people who can’t afford to pay for accommodation should live on the streets.

Then there are the figures. The allowances and payments are all available on the website of the Department of Social Protection.

The man’s disability allowance is given as €322. Disability allowance is the same as jobseeker’s allowance, which amounts to €188 a week plus €29.80 per child. This gives a total of €307.30, to feed and clothe a family of four.

The guardian’s pension payment, for taking in another child, feeding and clothing it and providing a home, is listed as €286. In fact, there are two qualifying payments for this type of guardian and the amount is either €161 or €164.80. In any event, the payment is only made after a rigorous examination of a family’s financial circumstances to determine whether it is warranted.

The wife, or mother, is listed as receiving a carer’s allowance of €286. This is again inaccurate. A carer’s allowance in a family situation like this amounts to €204. This is just €80 more than the wife would receive if she didn’t have a husband to care for, and was just surviving on social welfare. If she happens to be caring for two people — possibly a husband and child — the extra amount she would receive is €175.20.

Caring for two people with disabilities can be back-breaking work. Personally, I would find it easier to shovel concrete for 12 hours a day and at least get to rest when the evening came around.

Child benefit for four children is listed as €288 per week. Everybody, from millionaires to paupers, is entitled to child benefit. In fact, child benefit for four children comes to €624 a month, or around €156 per week.

Finally, there is that €211 for a daughter with “special needs”. The providence of this payment is a mystery. There may be an obscure payment that can be made to a minor with special needs, but it would have to be an extraordinary situation, and such a payment would only be made after a thorough examination of a family’s finances.

In the round, the story is wholly inaccurate, but never let facts get in the way of a good story. On Tuesday evening, on Today FM’s The Last Word, Robert Lynch of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, explained much of the above. In effect, he blew the story out of the water with facts. But the narrative was well and truly in the media’s bloodstream by then.

By the following morning, there were reports that the Government was considering capping welfare payments. On Newstalk’s Breakfast Show, the chief executive of the Jack and Jill Foundation was brought on to talk about the madness of paying out €90,000 to one family, while others went without respite care. During straitened times, a favoured tactic of tough guys who want “tough” decisions taken is to set one impoverished interest group up against another.

The song remained the same for the rest of the week. The story continued to be cited as if it was gospel. On Thursday, the Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, referred to it. The facts had become largely irrelevant.

It may be a coincidence, but the story entered the public arena through a Labour Party politician. Burton is of the same party. Of late, she has been talking up social welfare fraud, and people who take a “lifestyle choice” of living on the dole. The featured family would obviously be pigeon holed in the latter category.

As far as welfare fraud is concerned, a recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General stated that just 31% of overpayments over the last four years were attributable to fraud. Bogus claims were steady at around €20 million per annum, representing about 1% of the social welfare budget. Is that really a major issue? By contrast, lawyers at the Moriarty Tribunal were awarded an extra €250 a day for over six years as a result of a typographical error. This cost the state €1m. Nobody is shouting blue murder over that.

There is a nasty streak out there at the moment concerning attitudes to social welfare recipients. Burton and the Government are obviously softening up public opinion for cutbacks in the budget. The tactic is base and demonises large swathes of the population with no justification.

In the wider sphere, anger at the state of the country is being directed downwards to those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. A little restraint, a little compassion, a little regard for the truth, might go a long way in times like these.